13 November, 2018

After lunch on Saturday I had a chance to get my newly painted Syrians out. I realised, with relief, that they would not have to face Eric’s Hussites, and, with disappointment, that they would not meet Robin’s Ottomans. I’d had a couple of games the Monday before with Grant facing Normans impersonating WotR English, as there were two of those armies here, and I’d not learned how to face ranged elements well. I did better in the second of the games with Grant, which buoyed me up somewhat.

1. War of the Roses English (Keith)

Their first encounter was with the Keith’s WotR English. And sure enough, I was defending. However, the English did not go for too much terrain.

The Syrians.

I deployed my Adath militia on a dificult hill and the rest of my army spreading out to the right of it.

The English.

Facing them the English deployed their artillery next to an enclosure (RGo) and on their open right flank they had a solitary cavalry, although their reserve would be able to reinforce it.

I hoped to attack the artillery with my javelinmen and archers; and I succeeded in getting the two Bedouin behind their lines, where they destroyed an element of billmen. The archers attacked the artillery on its flank, forcing it to turn to face. The English commander and the reserve billmen responded to the Bedouing threat. Overlapped by the billmen and attacked by the general, one of the Bedouin nearly won the battle, rolling 6 to 2. It was a stick!

Bedouin get behind the lines.

On my next turn, I rolled 5 PiPs and becoming shaken by the enemy shooting (one of the Syrian cavalry had broken), I charged into the echeloned enemy line. It was a disaster. I’d somehow miscounted the enemy, and my elements did not end up facing the ones I thought they would. My general outdid the English one, rolling a humiliating 1 to lose the game.

In hindsight, the attack was folly, but it it uncomfortable receiving fire, and I couldn’t see a way of improving the situation for the Bedouin (the Turkomans might have been able to join them).

2. Aztecs (Colin)

For my second battle I was more comfortably defending, and I did not make it easy for the Aztecs, chosing a small hamlet (BUA), a gentle hill and a road.

The Aztecs, splendidly painted.

The Aztecs massed their hordes on their right flank and their psiloi on their left. I had the luxury of deploying to choose my targets. My javelinmen and the horde faced the psiloi, while cavalry faced the warband and blades. My light horse screened the hordes.

The Syrians.

On contact the general destroyed some blades and the warband went down to some ghulams. Elsewhere their general recoiled the other Ghulams, as did their psiloi my javelinmen.

Contact!

Their general opted to retreat to the hill, while the hordes flanked and destroyed a Bedouin LH. On my turn, the ghulams destroyed another blade, and the javelinmen and archers got a psiloi to break the enemy’s resolve.

Victory!

That was the last outing for the Syrians, as my next round was a bye. I was sitting second by my count, but my hope of winning rested on Keith’s English defeating Eric’s Hussites, as he had secured two more points in his defeat against me than I got in my defeat to Keith. As it turned out, his Hussites proved too tough for the English and I came second. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day — good opponents and good games played in a good spirit. I’d like to thank Keith for organising it!

23 March, 2014

I’ve not kept up with reporting games I’ve played. Part of the reason for this is because I’ve only got a camera that is not all that satisfactory. I’ve taken better photos with my phone than with the small camera I’ve tried to use. The tripod is broken and can’t support the large camera I’d used for my gallery shots.
The other reason I’ve not been active on the blog is that I’ve been too busy painting (more in the next post). Anyway, I’ve played quite a lot recently, and had some very good luck. Here are some photos that aren’t too blurry.

Battlecry, 16 Feb 2014

Last month I got along to Battlecry for a day of demo DBA games. We got a bit of interest and should be running a competition next year as a result of this. We played DBA 2.2, as noted earlier on MEDBAG.
My first game was against Joel, a historical matchup of my Early Seleucids against his Classical Indians.

Early Seleucids face Classical Indians.

The Indians up close (some are hidden behind the trees.

The Seleucids.

I should have been in serious trouble as the Indians came around my left flank in large numbers. However, they were obviously unfamiliar with scythed chariots, as mine proceeded to tear them to pieces. I came away with a lucky victory.

Chaos on the left flank.

Next I faced John, who’d just finished his Celtiberians. I used my Gauls.

Gauls v. Celtiberians.

View from the Celtiberian camp.

I managed to meet his warband with my cavalry and used this to my advantage in a battle on a narrow frontage.

Gallic cavalry triumphant.

I then faced Mike, who used my Carthaginians. I took my Syracusans. As we are both littoral, this involved a waterway, which ended up to my back. Mike went for a littoral landing.

Syracusan v. Carthaginians.

I hurried to advance to reduce the potential for the littoral landing party to make trouble. I was able to sack his camp (the crucified Syracusan was a provocation!) and used my longer line to outflank his elephants. Another victory.

The Tarantines return from sacking the camp.

I think we played some more games that I didn’t take pictures of. The last on my camera was my Syracusans against John’s Celtiberians. I don’t remember for sure if I won, but I think my luck was pretty strong, and I used my advantage in cavalry to compensate for the vulnerability of my spear to his warband.

Syracusans v. Celtiberians.

Unrecorded is our final BBDBA game of Carthaginians and Celtiberians against Romans and Spanish. This was officially a draw, but I’m sure the Romans had the edge when we stopped.

Auckland City Guard

Since then, I’ve mostly played DBA 3.0. Joel’s visited after work a few times, and I’ve got to the City Guard again. We’ve had a lot of fun trying out his Aztec hordes of doom, and we tried out a number of permutations of knights against spear.
From memory the time before last we played: Normans v. Anglo-Danish, Early Crusaders v. Comnenan Byzantines, Aztecs v. Prefeudal Scots and Vikings v. Anglo-Danish. I think there was an Aztec v. Early Crusaders too.
Last weekend I took some photos:
Our first game was his Aztecs against my North Welsh.

The Aztecs meet the Welsh.

The Welsh with their South Welsh ally.

The South Welsh cavalry got in the way of his archers and the spearmen got flanked; however, the Welsh had been making progress against the important Aztec elements.
Next we played Ptolemy against Lysymachus. The Ptolemaic army was quite different from what I expected. I tried a littoral landing of three auxilia in a line with side edge contact with the waterway. It seemed legal and threw Lysimachus’ plans to meet this treat. I got a narrow victory in this battle.
We then tried Carthaginians against Gauls.

Carthaginians drawn up against Gauls.

Carthaginians with a random stack of skulls next to their camp.

The Carthaginians won in a battle stacked in their favour (though elephants don’t quick kill warband any more). Our final battle was the Carthaginians against Aztecs. I didn’t take any pictures of this. The Carthaginians took only one elephant, I think. They were lucky in a battle between their two 2LH and the Aztecs two 2Ps. I killed both of them, but had I not, my back was to a wood, and I’d have been very much at a disadvantage.